Don't Stray Away From Me
by Bijyu Within
Summary: During the Great Shinobi War, Warriors and Innocents suffered from the endless onslaught. This is the story of three ninjas who lived through it all.


Disclaimer: We don't own this shit. Only the shit lying in my toilet is mine.

_Author's Note _

_(Hidatsa-san): Hey there guys! Well, goes like this. My friend (Bijyu Within) and I have decided to make a joint fiction! Anyway, for those of you who are wondering about my original fan fiction, review! Also, I WILL UPDATE SOON! Yea, I need to type this story now my friend is trying to make me eat squid legs. Ja Ne._

_(Bijyu Within): Just like Hidatsa said, this is a joint fiction. If you read his fiction and reviewed it, review mine too. If you don't, I'll order a hitman to kill each and everyone one of you. Also, squid legs are good._

During the Great Shinobi War,

Warriors and Innocents suffered from the endless onslaught.

This is the story of three ninjas who lived through it all.

Prologue. What She Felt.

She rose, and walked away from the corpse. Her bloodstained hands were trembling. Trembling with what? Was it grief? Regret?

She had stabbed his heart and completed her mission. She had killed the enemy, the traitor of her village.

She did what was right. Didn't she? She put her duty before her personal desires. If she did the right thing why would she feel this way? She should be happy! One of the greatest threats to Konoha was neutralized.

Tsunade would be welcomed as a hero back home.

Chapter One. Childhood

Orochimaru had every reason to hate the war. It took his family away. His father was killed during a mission. His mother and sisters were massacred in an invasion.

-------

Konoha was being invaded by Sand ninjas. While Orochimaru's family was running towards the Hokage Monument shelter, an enemy ninja spotted them. His big sister Yuari was a genin but she was no match for the attacker.

The ninja punched his sister with so much force that she flew to a wall and crumpled to the ground, dead. The bones of her body shattered.

His caring mother put her children's safety before her own. She told Orochimaru to run to the shelter with his 2 year-old baby sister, while she distracted the enemy ninja.

Orochimaru was running as fast as he could with his sister's hand in his. A nearby building exploded suddenly, and the debris fell all around them. His sister's skull was crushed by a large chunk of the wreckage. Overwhelmed with fear, Orochimaru let his tears fall and carried the bloody corpse with him to the Monument.

His weak four year old body couldn't carry the extra weight. He stopped to hide somewhere else, the Monument was too far. An old, charred, and half crumbling building caught his eye. As he entered, the stench of rotting corpses fogged his senses. There were dead bodies all around him in the old house, but Orochimaru had nowhere else to hide. He clutched his little sister's dead body closely for many hours until a rescue team found them.

The blood, bones, and the scent of rotting bodies wouldn't go away even after a few days. He cried and wouldn't let his tears stop. He saw his mother's remains after the invasion; she was ripped to shreds and was almost unrecognizable.

He watched his family being buried with immense sorrow. He had no more family left. He was all alone in this world.

He hated the war. He hated death. If this war was stopped no one would die.

He was going to become a ninja like his father and end this war.

That was the reason why he enrolled the academy at a tender age of five. At such a young age, his innocence was torn away from him.

Many children were forced to enroll because of shortage of shinobis, but very few were as young as him. Some children were sent off by their parents and some of them were from orphanages like Orochimaru.

Today was his first day at the academy.

The school building's only feature was its size and wasn't much to look at. It was a plain building with five rooms, one office, a cafeteria and a training field in the back. Each room was a classroom for about forty trainees.

Orochimaru came to class early since he had nothing to do in the orphanage. He was the first one there. He sat in the middle of the classroom. It was two hours before class started. He waited patiently for their teacher to arrive.

As minutes flew by more and more kids filled up the room. Thirty minutes before class started, he saw two kids his age.

One of the two kids sat in the back. He had white hair and seemed unhappy. He did not look like he wanted to be here. The other kid was a girl with long, blond hair. She sat near Orochimaru.

It was silent in the classroom since nobody actually knew each other. The blond girl decided to break the silence.

She looked at Orochimaru then waved, "Hi, my name is Tsunade!"

He turned and gazed at her, then answered after a while, "Orochimaru"

"Are you excited?"

"Maybe."

"I am! My grandfather is the great Shodaime Hokage! I wanna be just like him!"

His expression didn't change. He wondered what a Hokage was.

Her smile faded and said "Are you scared?"

"Why would I be?"

She shrugged, "I dunno you look upset"

Orochimaru merely grunted in reply.

After looking around the classroom, she got up and walked near the white haired boy. Orochimaru guessed she wanted to interact with other children her age and found him too quiet to talk to.

He listened to their conversation and found out that the boy's name was Jiraya. It seemed that his father forced him to enter the academy.

The rest of the minutes were spent in silence.

An adult walked inside the classroom. He looked battle worn yet full of energy. He had short black hair and a jonin vest on. He looked intimidating because all of his battle scars were visible on his bare arms and vest. Of course the students were oblivious to his rank.

"Alright trainees my name is Tousen! Starting today you will be trained to become Konoha shinobis and kunoichis!" announced the teacher, "You will do exactly what I tell you without question. Got that kids?"

"Hai!" the trainees answered in unison.

The teacher passed out blank scrolls, ink bottles, and brushes. "You will be taking notes today. Real training begins tomorrow. There will be no talking or any other form of communication. Also, no slacking" He threw a chalk at Jiraya's forehead, who started sleeping after Tsunade's conversation.

All the kids started to snicker. Orochimaru was also amused by the boy's stupidity.

"The arts of a ninja includes: taijutsu, genjutsu, and ninjutsu. Taijutsu is . . ." Tousen-sensei started to lecture.

All the trainees listened attentively during the school day. Nobody had time to chat and fool around. Tousen-sensei's hand moved with lightning fast speed over the blackboard. His voice was loud and clear. Everything he said was easy to understand, even for one young as Orochimaru. There were few breaks. During lunch he sat with Jiraya and Tsunade: the only kids his age. They didn't talk much though.

By the end of the day, all of them learned what makes a ninja a ninja: arts of the ninja, weapon names and shapes, ninja ranks, mission ranks, bloodlines and clans, insignias, powerful ninjas, country names, and most important of all, their alliances.

Konoha was in war with Cloud and its allies, Sand and Rock. Konoha had the aid of the Mist and Rain Villages. If he wasn't before, Orochimaru was now interested. He was about to learn which ninjas killed his family.

Tousen-sensei explained to them each village had their own special symbols. Konoha had leaf symbol, Mist had a symbol that looked like two pairs of curving lines, and Rain's symbol looked like four vertical lines next to each other.

Orochimaru waited for the teacher to continue.

"Now the next set of symbols I'm going to show you is very important. Make sure you memorize these!"

"Hai!" answered the children.

Tousen-sensei started drawing the symbols on the board as he talked, "Cloud has a symbol of three ovals that resemble a cloud, and Rock had a symbol that looks like a boulder with a crevice. The Sand Village's symbol is an hourglass. These are the symbols of our enemies."

Orochimaru's eyes narrowed on the hourglass Tousen drew on the blackboard.

"Sand Village lead the most recent invasion on Konoha. Many civilians and ninjas died as the result of this raid."

Orochimaru now recognized the symbol. The ninja that killed his mother and sisters wore a headband with the hourglass inscribed on it.

"Okay trainees you are free to go rest in your homes. Your homework is to study those notes and memorize them. There will be a test a week from now. Tomorrow we begin taijutsu and weapon training!"

"Hai!" said the children in unison before they exited the classroom.

Jiraya ran to the door and was the first to exit. Orochimaru looked back at Jiraya's seat. He left his scroll and his brush didn't have a trace of ink on it. He walked to Jiraya's seat and unrolled his scroll. Blank. He didn't take any notes.

'_How can this fool become a real ninja if he doesn't do anything?'_ Orochimaruthought.

"He was sleeping in class." noted the blond girl. _What was her name again? _Orochimaru had already forgotten.

"And how would you know?" asked Orochimaru.

"I sat next to him"

"…"

"Well bye snake-boy! See you tomorrow" He glared at her as she called him that.

She ran out the door. He looked down on the desk. _'She also forgot her scroll. sigh I guess I'll take it to her._'' thought Orochimaru.

He grabbed the scroll and saw the name written in neat handwriting. _Tsunade_. He ran out the door to follow her but she was already gone. He called her name a few times but it was futile. He assumed she went home and started his walk to the orphanage.

It was already 5:00 P.M. Today's lesson started from 10:00 A.M. and ended thirty minutes ago. His father taught him how to tell time by looking at the sun.

Orochimaru had no clue where Tsunade lived. He would just give the scroll to her tomorrow.

Orochimaru ate his dinner the caretaker at the orphanage prepared. He looked at his notes and began memorizing them.

'_That hourglass. . .' _he stared at the mini symbol in his scroll. He wanted to rip it apart. He suppressed his anger and continued to study. He looked into Tsunade's scroll. Her handwriting was incredibly neat. Her notes were well organized and easy to understand. He took a mental note to make his notes neat as Tsunade's.

Orochimaru came to a conclusion that if he started training early, he would be more prepared to become a ninja. The only thing he could start training right now on was toughening his body.

It was already dark outside, not a very safe time of the day. He remained indoors and started doing some exercises. Orochimaru did push-ups. When his father was alive, he watched his father train with great curiosity.

His first few were a challenge. Orochimaru kept on going until the muscles in his arms screamed with exhaustion. He did 30 push-ups total. Many would say that was impressing for a 5 year old. To Orochimaru, it still wasn't enough. He did sit-ups, 60 total, deep-squats, 64 total. After all this, he fell to the ground and fell asleep soon after.

Orochimaru slowly opened his eyes. His arms and legs were burning. Maybe he had pushed himself too far yesterday. He looked at the old grubby clock on the wall. It was 9:00 A.M. _'Good, I have an hour left till school' _

Orochimaru splashed his face with cold water, brushed his teeth with salt and changed into his spare outfit. The one he wore yesterday smelled of sweat. He wore a simple grey _gi_ and a dark blue _hakama_. His wardrobe consisted of 2 sets of this outfit that was slightly larger then his current size. It was provided by the orphanage since none of his family's belongings survived the raid.

He grabbed his and Tsunade's scroll and put his sandals on. The snake-boy started jogging to school.

When Orochimaru entered the classroom there still thirty minutes until class started. He saw Tsunade sitting by Jiraya. She noticed that Orochimaru was here and started waving at him. She pointed at the empty seat next to her. He frowned at her liveliness but sat next to her nonetheless.

"You forgot your scroll yesterday." He returned the scroll.

"Oh! So you had it the whole time!" Tsunade accused Orochimaru.

"I didn't steal it. When you left, you forgot your scroll. I was going to give it you but you were gone."

Tsunade made a face like --. "I was playing in the training grounds behind the school you know…"

Jiraya started to snicker. Orochimaru's face turned red, he should've known better to search the school before he jumped to conclusions.

"Well thanks anyway." she smiled.

"Che, this is boring. I wanna go home and play." Jiraya muttered.

"You're hopeless. If you want to protect your country you better get your act together."

"Whoever said I wanted to protect my country?"

"I did." Tousen-sensei entered the room unexpectedly. He glared and at Jiraya. Jiraya gulped. Their teacher almost made him pee his pants.

"The fact that you are in here proves that you would die serving Konoha, right?"

"Y-yes sir!" answered Jiraya nervously.

"Then get out here and do 50 push-ups" ordered the instructor.

Today was going to be a long day.


End file.
